NEW HIRE #1

Richmond Kaiser Shipyard Welding Crew #138: Calvin McKee, chief, Dennis Selfridge, yours truly Alice Jean Crowder, and Warner Marti — Kaiser’s best burners, we called ourselves. Hardhats with a 138 over a big V for victory. I’m Alice Jean. I bring in more take-home than my husband Stan who’s a rigger.

Then Calvin got on with GE’s sub division, and Dennis had the seniority. Myself, I’d started later in the trade, leaving college for the war effort. I’d been studying for the stage, as I have some talent. (Well also I was having some grade problems.) But now, having welded for a couple of years, I was getting to be an old hand. Hell, it got me to California, same as if I’d opted for the screen.

Stan, the first rigger I ever met, swept me off my feet by the Golden Gate and I just hadn’t realized why he’d driven me to see the Bay lights from the far docks. I just wasn’t used to brandy, but at the same time, maybe I was ready to live a little. Welcome to California!

Got me in what looked to be the family way, so we got married. False alarm, but we’d already tied the knot.

So this must be Chester Estes, when I saw Personnel escorting the new hire into Shipway 11. LeeAnne in Personnel had tipped me that the new one’s single. Her understanding was that this one learned to weld on the farm. Kaiser gets us from all over.

Watching him reminded me of my first day. Dumped into the scurry, he’s thinking he made a bad job choice. My first day, myself, I’d used the Bette Davis bit. Hi there, fellas! Worked like a charm.

I hoped this new one would give it a couple of years; it can take a while, but you get to like it. Me, I’d chosen Kaiser for the wrong reason — the overtime. Now I’d found a better reason to punch in, welding real ships, proving that us girls can do it faster, even. My secret: that little bit of extra heat and not pulling the rod away too fast.

This new hire looked a little gangly, but maybe OK, as after a few jokes, he’d quit refolding his goggles — men like their hands occupied — and was giving his thoughts on which Yankees were likely to end up in which Armed Force. That’s how guys get to know each other. Those service teams could whomp the Majors these days.

Us gals tend to get acquainted in terms of what we like, the soaps, for example. Men, by what they think.

Chester hailed from Oklahoma, was Baptist, was in tractor sales before, conceding that welding was harder, but sure beats commissions.

I sleuthed two crucial items: he wasn’t a pretty boy and he had no spouse. Most gals just check the latter, but I’d known a boy in school who wore his sister’s clothes. Other positives included that he smoked, liked dancing (not competitively, he wanted to be clear) and had good manners. A potential negative seemed to be the seriousness with which he took baseball. On the other hand, he could have liked the bottle too much, a Monday-morning problem for the rest of us. We get rid of them.

Then Dennis got a transfer to Kaiser Vancouver and as crew chief goes by seniority, Welding Crew #138: yours truly, Alice Jean Crowder, chief, Warner Marti, Chester Estes and another new hire in the works, still Kaiser Shipbuilding’s best burners, if I had anything to say about it.

I was glad I’d worked my way up, Heliarc in glove, so to speak. Chiefs need to earn their respect, especially lady ones.

NEW HIRE #2

And our new welder was another woman! Another Rosie the Riveter to the public, still a broad to most guys in Richmond, but to hell with that.

But another gal? I was as doubtful, Diane Stapleton, her name. Could she carry her weight? She had the biceps. Could she be trusted not to burn her partner on her right? Better, as 138 is going to stay accident free.

I could tell from her union book that she’d apprenticed in Kansas City and she probably knew her stuff. Rosies usually do. And for $1.05, 40 hours plus, two-week paid vacation, sick leave, us Rosies move to yards where there’s more water than ever flowed in the Missouri. This Diane one could submerge arc as fast as anybody could feed her electrodes.

Welding Crew #138: yours truly Alice Jean Crowder, chief, Warner Marti, Chester Estes and Diane Stapleton — Kaiser’s first half-guy, half-gal burner team.

I didn’t foresee romance right off, as it can take a couple of weeks at a place like this. Chester and Diane maybe chatted over lunch when a bench was free, but after a month I’d have suggested a little faster. There’s a War going on, you know?

I could tell that Diane was new to guys just from her giggle, same as me when I’d arrived. Shoot! If I’d taken the bus to Hollywood and traded my virginity off smarter, I’d not be in these coveralls. But then again, I’d not be making the ships that will win the war.

BARN DANCE

Knowing that Chester danced gave me the inspiration. Third Friday every month, 7:30, Store Shed 19, a country hoedown, I mentioned to Chester. “I’ll ask around and see who else is going.”

Diane laughed, “Barn dance?” but said it sounded like fun, though she admitted to only a city girl’s idea of barn dancing. Chester would be there and he knew how, I told her. When I promised her there’d be no cows or hogs, I had to add that it was a joke.

A barn dance is about as safe as a social can be. You’re in the arms of a different fella every 30 seconds. Even still, I pulled Diane aside, “You get everything pretty in your room, honey, your roommates ready to slip away for a soda, just in case.” She didn’t see it my way, but knew I was trying to be helpful.

On Monday, “Kept those knees together, honey?” this Rosie’s question to the other Rosie.

“Alice Jean, you’re just awful!” cuffing me like I was a single girl myself.

But after several weeks without follow-through on Chester’s part, he needed a shove “There’s another barn dance and Diane’s been rehearsing her Whoo Hoos.”

Diane followed my pointers a little better, making Chester wrap her in the swings, not as a smoothie might, though, so she’d turned sideways to help. Smart. Walking out to the street, she’d taken his arm.

She shared his cigarette like I told her “Pop it out of his mouth, take a drag and tease him with it when you put it back in,” but she didn’t ditch her girdle, my other suggestion. (Shoot. If I’d worn my girdle to see the Bay lights, I’d probably not be married.)

But still no follow-up from Chester, just a “Had us a really nice time.”

Why was Chester such a chicken? Baptists don’t do stuff? Full church nurseries, so not that. Okie babies have Okie daddies, so it wasn’t where he was from. Warner said lots of Okie babies are due to Route 66 passing through, and thought Chester’s problem was just shyness.

“Chester?” interrupting his small-talk about union scale while we were hauling cylinders. “Diane a good dancer?”

“She’s swell. Better’n me and she just started.”

“Ever get, you know, those little romantic thoughts?”

“About her? Well sure, but I’m not her type.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, you know, she’s real pretty.”

“That’s a reason?”

“Well, I mean, I’m not maybe that much used to girls. I can josh with you ‘cause you’re married, but, you know...”

“You ever made a little whoopee?” as Chiefs can ask such things.

“Not exactly.”

You’ve done it exactly, I’d have liked to tell him, or you’ve never done it at all. Heavens to Betsy! Me plus two virgins plus Warner, who I didn’t want to ask outright.

ASSISTANT CREW CHIEF

Warner said thanks when I tipped him off about the knockout receptionist in Security. He looked her over, but by then she was already taken.

Can’t say I didn’t try, but it was OK by me, as I rather liked him being on the loose.

When Warner said that I’d probably end up running the whole yard, I said I’d check with Casting. (Get it? We had a foundry at Kaiser, but I meant “casting” like for a play.) I could always swing a joke about acting with him because he and I were both in the Kaiser Players. Just bit parts, but something to do. It’s so strange: put a guy on stage and he assumes a new personality: Warner the butler, Warner the shopkeeper, Warner the guard. I’d usually get a role involving a great costume and we’d do each other’s makeup. And, shoot, if it’s a complicated costume, you ask whoever’s handy to help you get into it. Stan wasn’t much into theater, so I told him it was pretty much like Shakespeare and he went out with his buddies instead.

How many companies provide their workers a stage with actual curtains? We welded the superstructure, but it was on company time.

“What’s your score on that audition?” I’d ask when a bleached bombshell from Inventory sauntered by where we were securing gun mounts. “You wear coveralls, I wear a skirt,” her fanny more or less announced, but I didn’t take it personally. “Shoot, bud,” I told Warner. “If I let on that some crane-man was a good looker, you wouldn’t be telling Stanley, would you?”

“Not ever.”.

“Course a friendly girl wouldn’t need to look as far as the cranes.That’s why I never talk work at home. No sense getting Stan all agitated.” But Warner missed my thought.

Warner lived on the same bus line, Number 14. If it were raining at quitting time and I forgot my umbrella, we could dash for the 14 under his. He didn’t mind me grabbing his arm to jump a puddle. Such a “gallient”, my French word to sound theatrical. I’d hold on afterwards if I didn’t see any of my hubbie’s crew.

Securing deck-plate, Warner could probably sometimes see some underwear under my coveralls if I bent over right. I liked watching him check. At least he didn’t try some “Alice Jean, help me move this angle iron” line.

Warner could have at least now and then made a pass. Just for fun, me being single for the duration of my shift. Probably best where nobody else could see — maybe where they stock the kapok vests. Wanda in Inventory has the key. Rosies pretty much run this place, actually.

But he never figured it out, ole’ pal-o-mine Warner.

Nothing wrong with Stan on the home front, but our shifts usually didn’t even agree.

But back to the rest of the crew. “Hey, Warner?” pulling him aside at pee break. They just do it over the side if I’m not looking, but with me the chief, he was heading toward the head. “I need some advice”

I started right in. “Chester and Diane. So here’s my plan, just for kicks. We’ll stage it so they’ll get romantic.”

Warner’s switch clicked. “I thought you were already, that dance stuff.”

“Died in Scene 2.” I looked around. “Needs more direction.”

Warner looked around, too. “How so?”

“That’s what we’re planning. Maybe it takes a couple of stagehands to get them to do the act.”

“To do what act?” Men are so literal, and here he missed it!

“Get them needing to hitch up. They could rent a little bungalow.”

Warner looked perplexed, but only till I goosed him and made him jump.

“Actress part,” I explained. Rosies can touch their male co-workers the same way some co-workers touch a Rosie until she turns up her torch.

USS GEORGE D. PRENTICE

Kaiser’s slipping one Liberty Ship per day meant that no deck on the USS George D. Prentice stayed the same for long. If we wanted use of the George D’s quarters, we hadn’t much more than a day between when Cleanup swept out the grime and Outfitting bolted down the mirrors, even while George D’s deployment crew was getting off the train at Oakland Station.